Rituparna Bhowmick asks: will India accept gay couples?

But it’s difficult to predict whether conservative Indians would change their perception of the gay community.

India has traditionally been a study in curious contradictions that are deeply interwoven in its social fabric through centuries. If it is embracing and tolerant of alien customs, it is also proud and conservative of its own.

Visitors to the ancient temples of Khajuraho, built in the 10th century, would find homosexual couples immortalised in its stone carvings.

Yet, in the 21st century, gay men and women in India find it hard to come out of the closet in a society that frowns on public display of affection even among heterosexual couples.